Screenhead

Steven Spielberg made it perfectly clear to the trades that he is not giving up on Lincoln.

Spielberg wants to launch his Lincoln opus.  But as most large budget movies go these days the project was postponed by financial and location problems.

The Lincoln story focuses on the president’s torment over the length and toll of the Civil War. Tony Kushner is revising the script.

Spielberg is currently working on remaking Harvey with Robert Downey Jr.   This should be an interesting turn. Downey playing the man who sees an invisible rabbit.  I just hope he can tone down his energy to play the lead character.

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Now here’s a really exciting piece of news, especially for anyone who likes a good pirate movie.  Michael Crichton’s last book, Pirate Latitudes, is going to be adapted into a movie by no one less than Steven Spielberg.

This isn’t the first Michael Crichton movie adapted by Spielberg–he tackled both Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, so you can be pretty sure that he knows how to handle a Crichton novel.  Even better, he’s got a personal high opinion of Crichton’s work–check this out:

Anything that Michael wrote, Steven would be keenly interested to read. But without Michael knowing it, or even me knowing it, it turns out Steven always wanted to direct his own pirate film.

This isn’t surprising–considering how heavily pirate-themed The Goonies was and the somewhat piratical nature of the Indy film, it’s definitely a logical step for Spielberg to go to piracy as a theme.  Got to admit, though, I’m definitely looking forward to this.

Seriously, when I first heard that Steven Spielberg was looking to handle the Halo movie I was just all sorts of perplexed.

One, I thought that role had already been offered to District 9’s Neil Blomkap.

Two, seriously…what’s Spielberg doing handling video game translations?

Three, aren’t video game translations supposed to suck out loud?  What if this one turns out to be, you know, GOOD?  Granted, this isn’t so much a video game adaptation as it is an adapation of a book based on a video game (the movie’s script is slated to center around The Fall of Reach), but that’s really just semantics.  At its roots, this will be a Halo movie.

I’m not sure this will work out, but one thing’s clear, the whole thing will probably prove to be pretty interesting before it’s all said and done.  Whether or not Spielberg can make a video game movie is up for grabs, but considering his array of successes, I’d figure he’s got a chance.  Might be interesting to have a GOOD game movie to talk about for a change.

Former ER star Noah Wyle will be fighting aliens for Steven Spielberg, marking his reunion with the legendary director. All this is being done for TNT’s untitled alien-invasion plot that is being written by Robert Rodat from an idea he conceived with Spielberg.

The pilot is set shortly after aliens have wiped out most of the human population. Wyle is set to play the leader of a group of soldiers and civilians who struggle against the alien forces.

Wyle, so far, has starred in four films for TNT: the Librarian action-adventure franchise, which spawned three movies, and Pirates of Silicon Valley.

The pilot is being produced by DreamWorks TV.

Speaking with Empire Magazine, Peter Jackson revealed some details on the upcoming Tintin motion capture project, noting his involvement in both the first and the second film.

He is producing the first, with Spielberg directing. However, a week of reshoots will be done in June in his Wellington studios to fix any issues that need to be fixed from the original month-long shoot earlier this year.

Jackson said: “We’re kind of co-directing. I mean, we are co-doing it. Steven’s been on set with the actors for the last six weeks, and I was only there for a week. So he’s definitely directing the first in a way that I’m not" says Jackson.”

He admitted that while the base story for the first film will be based on The Secret of the Unicorn, it will also use elements from Herge’s other books to flesh things out.

The first is due out next year, with the sequel expected out in 2011.

The greats just keep dropping these days. After the saddening news of playwright behemoth Harold Pinter, fans of the written word will be saddened by the news that this week saw the demise of author JG Ballard. He died at the age of 78 of prostate cancer.

Ballard’s career as a writer started in the 60’s, where coming from an avante-gard mentality, began writing sci-fi books, such as The Drowned World (envisaging the melting of the ice caps, a concern still felt today by the likes of Al Gore). Ballard quickly became associated with rather educated depictions of dystopian futures. Ballard went on to delve into the pshychological and physiological effects that our increasing reliance on tehcnology had, especially in the powerfully written Atrocity Exhibition. His controversial novel Crash, was adapted into a film by David Cronenberg, an adaptation that sadly took a distanced approach to the subject material and left a bad taste in the mouth of the viewers.

Ballard’s big break was his fictionalised account of his early youth, in which he attempted to escape the Japanese assaults on Shanghai and China. Its power and heart was enough to prompt Steven Spielberg to adapt Empire of the Sun, which started the career of Christian Bale.

Ballard continued writing novels about the present and future into his later years, mostly to critical acclaim. He left behind him a style of of storytelling and subject matter that would inspire everything from Blade Runner to the Matrix to Minority Report. Indeed, I’ve always been surprised that more of his novels weren’t adapted into films, something which Hollywood should rectify if they’re searching for intelligent, engaging science fiction stories. One of his novels, High Rise, is currently in pre-production.

The trailer doesn’t say much about the movie. Perhaps the title, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, says it all.

Steven Spielberg’s The Adventure of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn has been concealed in secrecy during pre-production. Principal production has begun in Los Angeles, which is set for release in 2011 as the first installment of 3-D motion capture trilogy.

Daniel Craig and Jamie Bell recently signed on to star in Tintin.  Bell is playing the titular character, a brave young reporter who relentlessly pursues a good story that places him in sphere of high adventure.  Craig plays the despicable Red Rackham.

Other cast members include Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook.

The Abraham Lincoln biopic has been in development hell since like forever, and its star, like the rest of us, is in the dark despite comments from Steven Spielberg himself at the Golden Globes that the film is coming together really quickly.

“I don’t know (anything) other than what you know,” said Liam Neeson during the Taken press junket in Los Angeles. “He asked me four years ago would I play this part and I most certainly said I would. He’ll do it whenever he’s ready to do it, but it’s in the works.”

Neeson added that he hadnt seen any script yet, nor did he know how young Spielberg wanted the actor portraying the former American president to be. It can be noted that Lincoln was 56 when assassinated, the same as Neesons current age.

Word came earlier this month that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were going to collaborate on a remake of Oldboy, a classic Asian film. However, Will Smith has refuted the news story, noting that their new project will actually be an adaptation of the comics by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi.

Said Smith: “We’re looking at that right now. Not the film though, it’s the original source material. There’s the original comics of ‘Oldboy’ that they made the first film from. And that’s what we’re working from, not an adaptation of the film…"

They are currently looking for a writer to begin the development process.